To their
Algonquin-speaking neighbors in the north, they were known as ‘Mengwe’; to
those in the south the name was ‘Mangoak’.
By this, they referred in groups of people sharing similar, though not
identical languages, and a number of cultural traits. The Dutch version of the name was ‘Minqua’,
which the English further corrupted into ‘Mingo’. According to many authorities, the original
word means “without penises” (as in "dickless"). Who said
Indians have no sense of humor.
Cultural
generalities
Among the more admirable
traits of the Iroquoian-speaking peoples is the high status accorded to women
among them, a few of the tribes and confederacies being “ruled”, as much as
that can be said about the governance of any groups outside the Mississippian
cultures (such as the Natchez and the Wateree which survived into the colonial
era). Sometimes war parties included
women as well as men, and if attacked, Iroquoian women could fight as well as
the men.
Less admirable was
their avidity for the consumption of human flesh. That fact comes not from wild rumors or
vicious slander but from eyewitness accounts, particularly of the French, who
indeed did not want to defame those about whom they were reporting at all, for
often the reporters were Jesuit missionaries who wanted to convert them. One notable account comes from Abbe Gallinee,
associate of Robert La Salle; in his journey down the Ohio River, his Seneca
guides and bodyguards brought with them a prisoner from the north just for that
purpose.
The dominant feature
of the towns of the western and eastern Iroquoians, and possibly the middle
Iroquoians also, was the longhouse, some as long as an American football field
and housing up to sixty persons, all of the same clan. The southern Iroquoians and later composite
groups followed the pattern of their surrounding neighbors.
Clans were
matrilineal and exogamous, and children belonged to that of their mother.
Besides hunting and
fishing, they engaged in agriculture of the “three sisters” (maize, beans,
squash) and gathered wild edible plants as well.
Religiously, there
were no all powerful deities, just powerful spirits, but there was a force
behind all life. The Huron called this
force the “Orenda”, but they made no sacrifices no offered prayers to it. At least among the western Iroquoians, that
part of the Orenda in each individual being was called its “otkon”; among the
eastern Iroquoians the connotation was more of “evil spirit”.
All the Iroquoians
practiced sky burial. The western
Iroquoians would hold a Feast of the Dead every ten to twelve years, the same
time they were moving their town to a new location, burying the bones in the
old grounds.
About this essay
What follows is a
list of the known tribes and confederacies, which far exceeds in number those
most usually known, with a brief description, note of their subgroups, their
fate, participation in the colonial wars of the 1700s, and their descendants.
In these passages,
the word “Iroquois” refers specifically to the League of Five Nations, those
most commonly referred to as Iroquois.
The word ‘Iroquoian’ in singular or plural refers to all
Iroquoian-speakers in general or to those on groups not members of the League. For example, the “western Iroquoians” are the
Huron, Erie, Chonnonton, Petun, etc., while the “western Iroquois” are the
Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga; the “eastern Iroquoians” are the same group as
“the Iroquois”.
The divisions are
ones that seemed to me most convenient to divide them into biteable size chunks
and generally follows standard arrangements, except for the inclusion of the
“composite groups” division.
NORTHERN
Laurentians
When Jacques Cartier
made trips to Canada attempting to establish a permanent colony, he found
several tribes dwelling there in fortified villages, most of them hostile to
each other.
The people of these
towns, or villages, spoke similar languages from the Iroquoian family. In addition to the French, fishermen from
Europe—Basques, Portugese, Bretons—plied the fish-rich waters of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and the Labrador Sea, and also came into contact with these
natives.
Nomenclature: Historians and archaeologists call them the
Laurentians or St. Lawrence Iroquois because they lived along that river. The Basque fishermen called them the
‘Canales’; their neighbors the Micmac called them the ‘Kwedech’.
Territory: Various towns along the St. Lawrence River.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: In
ascending order, the towns, all on the right bank (north shore), included: Ajoaste,
Starnatam, Tailla, Sitadin, Stadacona, Tequedonay,
Achelacy, and Hochelaga. The
towns/tribes which were the most bitter rivals among the Canales or Kwedech
were Stadacona (where Champlain built
Quebec) and Hochelaga (on Ile de Montreal).
Fate: Basque fishermen who visited the area in 1570
reported that all the tribes were engaged in war with powerful enemies to the
south (the Five Nations Iroquois). Other
Basque fishermen visiting in 1580 reported all the towns were deserted. What became of them is one of the great
mysteries of Canadian prehistory and archaeology.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
WESTERN
Attiwandaron
Spelled
‘Atiouandaron’ on the Boudon map of “Nouvelle France” of 1641, a mistaken
reading of accounts of the 1640 journey of the Jesuit Fathers Jean de Breboeuf
and Pierre Chaumonot might lead one to believe those passages referred to those
people rather than the Wenro. A list of
tribes in the Jesuit Relation for
1640 calls this particular group the ‘Attiouendarankhronon’.
Nomenclature:
Usually spelled ‘Atiouandaron’ or some
variation thereof on French maps, this term is not an ethnonym but a Huron word
meaning “their speech is awry’, or, to put it more colloquially, ‘those
funny-talking people’. The corresponding
word of the Five Nations Iroquois is ‘Hatiwantarunh’.
The people most
often called Attiwandaron in French records are the Chonnonton, also known as
the Neutral Nation. Another group also
so designated appear west of the Appalachian Mountains across from Virginia. These latter were almost certainly those
known to the Algonquin-speaking natives east of the mountains as the
‘Massawomeck’.
By the way, the
Huron designation for those speaking a completely different language, such as
the Algonquin-speaking Ottawa, for example, was ‘Akwanake’, which is one of the
names the Huron-descended Wyandot gave to the Cherokee in the next century.
Territory: In
southern Lower Michigan, south of the Winnebago and west of the Fox,
perhaps as far as the eastern shores of Lake Michigan.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: None known.
Fate: They may have been the group of Petun who
invaded Lower Michigan looking for more sources of beaver for trade with the
French in 1630. If so, or even if not,
they likely joined with the refugee Huron, Petun, and Chonnonton who became the
Wyandot later in the century.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: None known, unless they did in fact join the
Wyandot.
Petun
Nomenclature: Their autonym was ‘Wendat’, and other native
peoples called them the ‘Tionontati’ and the ‘Dinondadies’. To the French they were the ‘Petun’, or the ‘Hurons
de la Nation du Petun’, ‘petun’ being French for ‘tobacco’, for which one of
the English names for them was ‘Tobacco Indians’.
Territory: Southwest of Georgian Bay, northeast of the
Ottawa, north of the Chonnonton, and west of the Huron.
Towns and/or constituent
tribes: Two tribes are known, the Oskennonton and the Annaariskwa, who lived in nine towns, the capital of which was Etarita
or Ekarenniondi.
Fate: In revenge for their taking in Huron refugees
following the collapse of that confederacy, the Iroquois targeted the Petun,
destroying Eharita in the winter of 1649.
Afterwards, many of the Petun fled south to the Chonnonton while the
rest, along with the Huron refugees among them, retreated to their two
northernmost towns. The next year, these
latter went with their Ottawa allies to Mackinac Island. By mid-1653, the combined refugees had merged
with refugee Chononton to become the Wyandot in the Green Bay area.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Besides those adopted by the Iroquois and
possibly any who may have gone south to become part of the Cherokee, Petun
descendants survive among the Wyandot, among whose own descendants their
bloodlines remain.
Huron
When Champlain first reported of them in 1615, they had
30,000 people. By 1640, they were
reduced through disease, famine, and warfare to just twelve to fifteen
thousand.
Nomenclature: Their autonym was ‘Wendat’, but the French primarily
called them ‘Huron’ or ‘Huron les bon Iroquois’. Champlain first referred to them as the ‘Ochateguin’,
then later as the ‘Charioquois’ (‘Charioquet’, ‘Charokay’), and also as the
‘Allegonantes’.
The Seneca called them the ‘Sastharhetsi’ while the Mohawk
called them the ‘Quatoghi’, the latter of which was adopted by the English and
later by the Americans, for whom it was the preferred term for the Huron and
Wyandot throughout the nineteenth century.
The Lenape referred to the Huron as the ‘Talamatan’, which
some writers have interpreted as ‘people who dwell in caves’. Algonquian speakers in general referred to
them as the ‘Little Minqua’, the modifier ‘Little’ distinguishing them from
other Iroquoian-speakers, specifically the Five Nations.
Some French writers, mostly the Jesuits writing reports for
those across the water, muck things up even further by referring to all
non-League Iroquoian groups as Huron, at least the ones in the vicinity of New
France, especially in writings. ‘Hurons
les bons Iroquois’ refers to those in the Huron confederacy; ‘Hurons de la
Nation du Petun’ refers to the Petun; and ‘Hurons de la Nation Neutre’ refers to the Chonnonton confederacy.
The Mohawk call the Huron of Wendake the ‘Radinyagwenghtha’.
Territory: At the time of the French entrée, the
Huron occupied the high ground between Lake Smile and Georgian Bay on Lake
Huron, east of the Petun, north of the Chonnonton, and east of the
Chondake. Archaeology has clearly demonstrated,
however, that they originated as a people on the northern shores of Lake
Ontario. One of the major excavations has
been the tremendous Mantle Site, occupied 1500-1530, the largest and most
cosmopolitan ever found in the Great Lakes region, with some fifty-five
longhouses occupied at one time and trade with all Five Nations of the later
Iroquois League and with the Laurentians.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: The Huron had some twenty towns, of
which the chief of the confederacy was Ossossane, at the site of
modern Perkinsfield, Ontario.
The confederacy began as the alliance of two tribes in the
home region, the Attignawantan (‘Bear
People’) and the Attiguenongha (‘Cord
People’), probably in the mid-fifteenth century. The Arendahronon
(‘Rock People’) joined around 1590, and the the Atahontaenrat (‘Deer People’) about 1610; both tribes likely driven
out of the St. Lawrence Valley by the Iroquois.
In 1644, during the Beaver Wars, the confederacy formed a new tribe, the
Ataronchronon (‘People of the Bog’) out
of refugees from defeated groups, primarily Christians from the Weskarini
Algonkin, Algonquian-speaking Atonontrataronon (‘Cord People’), and a portion
of the Wenro.
Fate: The Iroquois began frequently raiding their
long-term enemies the Huron in 1642, and continued until they were dispersed or
assimilated. When the Huron formed an
alliance with the Susquehannock in 1647, the western Iroquois (Seneca, Cayuga,
Onondaga) attacked them in force, destroying the chief town of the Atahontaenrat
and dispersing the Arendaronon, some of whom fled to other Huron while others
were assimilated.
In 1648, the Iroquois destroyed the town of Teananstayae and its Jesuit mission of St. Joseph, dispersing the Attiguenongha, then destroyed two towns of the Attignawantan, who took refuge with the Petun and the
Chonnonton.
When the Iroquois destroyed two mission towns in 1649, the
Huron burned the remaining fifteen and scattered, the Atahontaenrat to the
Chonnonton and the Ataronchronon to Christian Island in Georgian Bay. Those of the last group who survived the
brutal winter moved to Lorette the next year north of Quebec, and remain as the
Huron of Wendake. Those who sought
refuge among the Petun ended up merging with them to become the Wyandot.
When the Chonnonton confederacy collapsed in 1651, the
Atahontaenrat surrendered to the Seneca,
who adopted them and gave them their own town, Gandougarae.
The Arendahronon and the portion of Attignawantan refugees among the Chonnonton removed to the Ile d’Orleans, where they lived until surrendering in 1657, with the Onondaga adopting the former and the Mohawk adopting the latter.
The Attigneenongnahac who had been at Ile d’Orleans remained at Quebec until relocating to Lorette, where they eventually became the Huron of Wendake.
Large numbers of Huron exiles took refuge among the various tribes of the Erie, and their fates followed those of their hosts. The exiles were large enough in number that historians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries included them as one of the two major Iroquoian nations that formed the basis of the multi-ethnic Cherokee people.
The Arendahronon and the portion of Attignawantan refugees among the Chonnonton removed to the Ile d’Orleans, where they lived until surrendering in 1657, with the Onondaga adopting the former and the Mohawk adopting the latter.
The Attigneenongnahac who had been at Ile d’Orleans remained at Quebec until relocating to Lorette, where they eventually became the Huron of Wendake.
Large numbers of Huron exiles took refuge among the various tribes of the Erie, and their fates followed those of their hosts. The exiles were large enough in number that historians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries included them as one of the two major Iroquoian nations that formed the basis of the multi-ethnic Cherokee people.
Colonial wars of the 1700s: The Huron at Wendake, the only remaining population still identifying
as Huron, sided with New France in all its wars against the British until 1763,
when their allegiance switched to Great Britain following its victory in the
French and Indian War. During that war,
the Huron became one of the Seven Nations of Canada supporting the French then
the British, all the way through the American Revolution and the War of 1812. They were also part of the Western
Confederacy during the Northwest Indian War as one of the Seven Nations. The Wyandot are covered below.
Descendants: The
Huron-Wendat Nation of Wendake, Ontario, are the only remaining group with an
individual Huron identity. Their
descendants also made up a good portion of the Wyandot. Others became part of the Cherokee or were
adopted by various tribes of the Iroquois; many of these latter became part of
the non-Six Nations Iroquois who became the Mingo in the eighteenth century.
Chonkande
These are similar to the first group of western Iroquoians
listed, a small group known only by a few mentions and one or two placements on
maps.
Nomenclature: No autonym known, but listed in various
sources and media as Chonkande, Konkhandeenhronon, and Chonchradeen.
Territory: It appears from the 1641 Nouvelle France map
that they occupied the territory north of Lake Ontario and east of the Huron.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: None known.
Fate: Outside of their appearance on maps and a
couple of entries in the Jesuit Relations
that merely note their existence, nothing is known of them.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
Chonnonton
The Chonnonton confederacy was similar in some respects to
the Powhatan confederacy to the south, and like the latter had been formed by
its current paramount chief at the time of first contact, in this case, Tsouharissen
(‘Child of the Sun’), in the 1620’s. It
was the largest and most politically complex grouping in the Great Lakes
region.
Upon Champlain’s arrival, they numbered 40,000. By 1640, they were one-third of that.
Nomenclature: Their autonym was ‘Chonnonton’ (‘people of
the deer’), but the French knew them best as the Neutral Nation, not because
they never went to war (they did, particularly against the Algonquians of Lower
Michigan), but because they did not take sides between the Huron confederacy
and the Five Nations Iroquois. Canadian
historians almost universally use this name, while Americans call them the
Neutrals or the Attiwandaron.
Territory: They occupied the northern shores of Lake
Erie west of the Niagara River north to the territories of the Huron and the
Petun and west to that of the Ottawa.
After the Seneca drove away the Wenro, the Onguiaahra tribe of the
confederacy occupied four villages in the Niagara Frontier also.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: This confederacy
made up of an average (membership was somewhat fluid) of ten separate tribes had
evolved more than even the League of Five Nations, into a proto-chiefdom living
in about forty towns and villages, twelve of them fortified towns and
twenty-eight unfortified villages at the time the Jesuits visited them. The seat of the proto-chiefdom was at Andachkhroh,
also called Ounontisaston after the dominant tribe. Other tribes in the confederacy whose names
we know were the Kandoucho, the Teotondiaton, the Antouaronon, the Attiragenrenga,
the Onguiaahra, the Aondihronon, the Oherokouaehronon ‘(people of the grass country’), and the remnant Wenro, who lived in the town of Khioetoa
after they relocated west of the Niagara River in 1643.
Fate: When Tsouharissen died without a successor in
1646, the Chonnonton proto-chiefdom collapsed, and the confederacy began to
unravel. The Iroquois destroyed the
chief town of the Aondirronon in 1647, and the Chonnonton’s alliance with the
Erie collapsed the next year. After the
Huron confederacy dissolved in 1649, half the Attignawantan and the
Atahontaenrat sought refuge among them, and at the end of the year, a good
portion of the Petun. Their town of Teotondiaton
was destroyed in fall 1650, and their towns of Kandoucho and Andachkhroh, after
which the Chonnonton were assimilated or dispersed.
While many fled to the Erie, a large portion remained independent
to continue the fight. Among those who fled to the Erie were the Antouaronon, who moved as a group to the southern
shores of Lake Erie just west of the Oniasontke; these may have joined the Erie confederacy.
The free Chonnonton allied with the Susquehannock in 1652 to deliver a sizable enough defeat on the Seneca for them to send their women, children, and elders to the Cayuga. These wintered at Skenchioe (Thumb of Michigan) near Teochanontian (Detroit), attempting to form a league with the Upper Algonquin. The next year they migrated to Aotonatendie (Door Peninsula on Green Bay) and probably merged with the Wyandot who settled on Rock Island.
The free Chonnonton allied with the Susquehannock in 1652 to deliver a sizable enough defeat on the Seneca for them to send their women, children, and elders to the Cayuga. These wintered at Skenchioe (Thumb of Michigan) near Teochanontian (Detroit), attempting to form a league with the Upper Algonquin. The next year they migrated to Aotonatendie (Door Peninsula on Green Bay) and probably merged with the Wyandot who settled on Rock Island.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Their bloodlines survive in the Wyandot, in
most of the Six Nations, especially the original Five, and among the
descendants of the Mingo.
Wenro
Though small, these people carried out trade with both the
English and the Dutch through the Massawomeck and the Susquehannock
respectively.
The Wenro are most notable for their use of
petroleum-tainted water for medicinal purposes when first encountered by a
European.
Nomenclature: The name by which they are known, variously
written as ‘Aouenrehronon’, ‘Ahouenrochrhonon’,
and ‘Awenrehronon’, is probably an exonym.
Territory: When first encountered by Jesuit Father
Joseph de la Roche Daillon in 1627, they were centered around Oil Springs. Later, they occupied the Niagara Frontier.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: When living on
the Niagara Frontier, they occupied four villages between the river and Lake
Ontario. How many they had in the Oil
Springs region is unknown, and they are believed to have been a single tribe.
Fate: In 1635, they moved northwest from Oil
Springs to the Niagara Frontier to escape the Seneca who lived not far across
the Genesee River, after being admitted as a member of the Chonnonton
confederacy. Three or four years later,
they were attacked there as well, and a majority sought refuge with the Huron
or the Chonnonton. A belligerent
contingent kept fighting until 1643, when they joined their cousins among the
Chonnonton. Afterwards, they shared the
fates of their various hosts.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Most of the remaining identifiable Wenro
joined the exodus to the west in company with the Petun remnant and the Huron
refugees who did not surrender, the group that became the nucleus of the
Wyandot, among whose descendants the Wenro bloodlines survive.
Erie
This group may actually have been the largest of all. One tribe of this confederacy alone was said
to have had nineteen settlements before the Iroquois destroyed them all. While probably not approaching the
sophistication of a chiefdom, they may have been a large confederacy of smaller
confederacies. They traded with the
Dutch, probably through the Susquehannock, and with the English, both directly
and through the Massawomeck, who may have been tributary. That they were the last confederacy of
Iroquoian speakers in the west that the Iroquois took on lends credence to
allusions by the Jesuits to their numbers and ferocity. Their chief leaders were women, and they are
noted for their use of poison-tipped arrows.
Nomenclature: Their autonym is not known, but since Huron
did not call them ‘Attiwandaron’ as they did the nearby Chonnonton and the Massawomeck
beyond them to the southeast, they likely spoke a nearly identical language and
may have called themselves ‘Wendat’. The
Huron called them ‘Yenresh’ (more properly ‘Yenreshronon’), which the French
corrupted into ‘Erie’ or ‘Enrie’, as well as Enrielhonan, Rhiierrhonnon, and Eriehronon. However, the French most often called them ‘Nation
du Chat’, a more or less exact translation of the Huron name, and some
variation of the word ‘Riqueronon’, after their chief town ‘Rique’, or Arriga,
though properly speaking that designation should have been reserved for the
tribe which hosted it.
The Seneca called
them ‘Gwageoneh’, the Mohawk called them ‘Arrigahaga’, the Onondaga called them
‘Onnontioga’, and the Tuscarora called them ‘Kenyrak’, and all of the Iroquois
gave them the pejorative nickname, ‘Otkons’ (‘bad spirits’ or ‘demons’). The Lenape called them ‘Allegewi’, the Ottawa
called them ‘Olighin’, and the Dutch called them the ‘Black Minqua’.
Territory: At the time of the French entrée,
their territory extended south from the shores of Lake Erie to the lands of the
Shawnee in the Ohio Valley, southeast to the lands of the Massawomeck, and west
from the lands of the Wenro (when the latter were at Oil Springs) to the
Cuyahoga River. After the Wenro moved
northwest while at the same time the Kickapoo harried them from the west, the
Erie shifted east, and their territory extended to the Genesee River.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: The
Erie confederacy was composed of four or five tribes, the Atrakwaeronon,
the Arrigahaga, the Kentaientonga, the Oniansontke, and,
possibly, the Takoulguehronnon, if these last were not a member of the Chonnonton confederacy. In
addition, the Antouaronon may have formed part of the confederacy after
relocating south of Lake Erie and west of the Kentaientonga upon the
disintegration of the Chonnonton. Only
three town names are known for sure: Atrakwae, Arrigha (‘Rigue’),
and Kentaienton, and these were all large fortified towns. But they were not the only settlements, with
the Kentaientonga alone reportedly having at least nineteen towns and/or
villages.
Fate: The Seneca attacked the Atrakwaeronon in late
1651 and were seriously defeated, but came back with the rest of the western
Iroquois in summer 1652, capturing Atrakwae and ending the Atrakwaeronon as a
tribe. After sealing an alliance with
the Susquehannock, the Erie as a whole, at the time governed by a woman,
launched a war agains the Seneca in 1653.
In 1654, the Iroquois destroy Arriga, but the counterattack by the Erie drove
the Seneca into the lands of the Onondaga.
The next year the whole Iroquois League petitioned the French for a
military alliance because the war was going so badly, but they later managed to
destroy Kentaienton all on their own. By
the end of 1656, most of the major fighting had ended.
After Arriga was destroyed in 1654, most of the surviving Arrigahaga/Rigueronon/Herekeenes
removed southwest to the head of the Falls of Virginia, where the locals called
them the ‘Rechahecrians’. Along with
some surviving Huron and members of the Shawnee and Powhatan and other peoples,
these moved further south and southwest to become the Cherokee, and probably
absorbed more refugees from the north as well.
In 1662, a large group of the Oniansontke (800 warriors plus women,
children, elders) settled across the river from the Susquehannock to aid them
in the war with the Iroquois.
The Iroquois reported the “final defeat” of the Erie to the French in
1664, but there were still independent Oniansontke on the middle Ohio River in
1669, and a large group (600) of Erie, the last reported as such, surrendered
to the Seneca near Virginia in 1682. That same year an anonymous French map showed the Oniasontke at head lake of a small tributary of the Ohio, or the Wabash, River, where maps continued to show them into the late 18th century; they may have merged into the Mingo nation.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Besides the Cherokee, those who were adopted
by the various nations of the Iroquois League made up a large portion, perhaps
even a majority, of the conglomerate people known as the Mingo, and so survive
among their descendants as well.
EASTERN
Iroquois
This branch of Iroquoian-speaking peoples is made entirely of the Five,
later Six, Nations of the League of the Iroquois. Late nineteenth through twentieth century
legend held that the Iroquois League has existed for six hundred to a thousand
years, but in truth the league was not wholly formed even in the seventeeth
century. Throughout at least the early
decades of that century, the western Iroquois and the eastern Iroquois operated
as two separate but closely allied groups; Champlain referred to the western
group (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga) as “Entouhronon” and the eastern group
(Mohawk, Oneida) as “Iroquois” proper.
The Great Law, which established the League in its current form, most
likely dates to no earlier than the early mid-seventeenth century. Besides seeking more sources of beaver to
trap for trade with European powers, one of the major motivating factors for
the League’s conquest of other Iroquoian-speaking peoples was to bring them all
under “one roof”, a crusade carried out with a missionary zeal reminiscent of
that of the Arab tribes united by Muhammad seeking to bring all of Arabia under
the “roof” of Islam. This zeal was
intensified by the drastic losses from the smallpox epidemic which swept
through the region in 1635, reducing their bumers by 63%.
Nomenclature: Though the Nations of the League have their
own names for the confederacy, the most common autonym, the official one used
in English, is “Haudenosaunee”. The name
outsiders most commonly use is “Iroquois”, the French form of an
Algonquian-language name.
Territory: The territory which the original Five Nations
held at the French at the time of Champlain lay between the Genesee River in
the west and the Hudson Valley and Green Mountains of Vermont in the east,
southward from the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario into what is now
northern Pennsylvania. During the Beaver
Wars of the seventeenth century, the League expanded this territory to include
nearly all of the western Great Lakes regions, even for a time possessing seven
towns on the north shores of Lake Ontario, and the Ohio Country, including the
lands south to the Cumberland River.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: The
original Five Nations were, west to east, the Seneca, the Cayuga,
the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Mohawk. The Tuscarora were added in 1722, with
the confederacy becoming the League of Six Nations, but on a less-than-equal
status. In 1740, the Cayuga brought in the Mississauga as a refugee nation, making the Confederacy the League of Seven Nations.
The Mohawk have always been recognized as the “elder brother” of the League. The number of towns each Nation had varied, depending on level of hostilities with surrounding peoples.
The Mohawk have always been recognized as the “elder brother” of the League. The number of towns each Nation had varied, depending on level of hostilities with surrounding peoples.
The people of the Five Nations speak four distinct but mutually
intelligible languages, the Mohawk and the Cayuga sharing one and the Seneca and
the Onondaga another, while the Oneida, like later member the Tuscarora, having
one all to itself. A bit odd,
considering the arrangement of their separate geographic locations at the
formation of the League.
Fate: As the overwhelming victors of the wars of
the seventeenth century, the League not only thrived but grew. Despite a number of splits in the eighteenth
century, the League held together and eventually its separated parts came back
to the central council fire.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: The League of Five
(later Six) Nations invariably supported the British in their colonial wars
against the French until the French and Indian War, when the League split.
The League supported the British against the French and the Wabanaki
confederacy in King William’s War of 1688-1697.
The League fought for the British in Queen Anne’s War of 1702-1713.
The Mohawk supported the New England colonies against the Wabankaki
confederacy and their native allies in Dummer’s War of 1722-1725.
The League again supported the British in King George’s War of
1744-1748.
In the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, a majority remained
steadfast with the British, but a sizable minority chose to support the French,
resulting in their secession and subsequent creation of the Seven Nations of
Canada later formed: Mohawk of
Akwesasne, Mohawk of Kahnawake, Mohawk and Anishnaabeg (Algonkin and Nippising)
of Kanesetake, Onondaga of Oswegatchie, Huron of Wendake, Abenaki of Odanak,
and Abenaki of Wolinak. This alliance
lasted until after the War of 1812, supporting the British after their victory
over New France.
The Seneca fought alongside the western tribes against the British in
Pontiac’s War of 1763.
During the American Revolution, the League itself did not support
either side. The Oneida and the
Tuscarora adhered to the cause of the American colonies while the Seneca, Cayuga,
and Onondaga supported the British and the Mohawk split between the two. After the war, a majority of the entire
League moved north into Canada, though the “central fire”, along with a
significant minority, remained in south in the United States.
Some Seneca participated in Tecumseh’s War of 1811-1813.
Both the League of Six Nations and the Seven Nations of Canada were
members of the Western Confederacy during the Northwest Indian War. Both also supported the British during the
War of 1812, their last attempt to regain control over their lost colonies.
Descendants: In Canada, homes of the League today include
the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario, the Mohawk of
Kahnawake, the Mohawk of Kanestake, the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne, the Thames
Oneida in Ontario, the Tyendinaga Mohawk in Ontario, and the Wahta Mohawk in
Ontario.
In the United States, there are the Seneca Nation, the Cayuga Nation, the
Onondaga Nation, the Oneida Indian Nation, the Tuscarora Nation, the Kanatsiohareke Mohawk,
the Ganienkeh Mohawk, and the St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians in New York; the
Oneida Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin; and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma,
the “Seneca” portion of this group composed of the Mingo that became known as
the “Seneca of Sandusky” who later combined with two separate groups of Cayuga
that joined them decades apart.
MIDDLE
Carantowan
Very little is known of these people at all, mostly from a couple of
engagements in which the Huron attacked them in alliance with the French under
Champlain.
Nomenclature: The Huron called these people the ‘Scahentoarrhonon’,
which Champlain corrupted into ‘Carantouannais’, which is closer to their
Seneca name, ‘Carantowan’. All of these
mean ‘People of the Great Flats’.
Territory: The Carantowan occupied the Wyoming Valley and
the North Branch of the Susquehanna River in what’s now northern Pennsylvania,
roughly three days south of the lands of the Seneca.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: There were
three towns, but no mention was ever made of their being comprised of more than
one tribes.
Fate: They were destroyed or dispersed by their
Seneca enemies in the third or fourth decade of the seventeenth century. They were most likely absorbed by the Seneca,
the Susquehanna, or, most likely, both.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
Otzinachson
Even less is known about these people than the Carantowan, only from
one of two mentions.
Nomenclature: The name means ‘People of the Demon’s Dens’.
Territory: They occupied the upper West Branch of the
Susquehanna.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: Unknown.
Fate: Unknown.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
Onojuttahaga
Another little known group, known only from one or two mentions in
early colonial records.
Nomenclature: The name means ‘People of Standing Stone’.
Territory: They occupied Juniata Branch of the
Susquehanna.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: Unknown.
Fate: Unknown.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
Susquehannock
A populous confedracy of six or seven tribes, this group was at one
time rival to the League of Five Nations to the north, a position they gained
by securing for themselves the position of primary trading partner with both
New Amsterdam (and later New York) and Jamestown, for the northern tribes (the
Occaneechi filled that spot for the southern tribes). In the first instance, they conquered and
displaced the Lenape to take their place.
Their trading partners among the Iroquoian peoples were the Wenro, the
Huron, the Erie, and the Massawomeck.
They were allied militarily at various times with the Huron, the
Chonnonton, and the Erie.
Nomenclature: Their autonym is unknown. To the French, they were the ‘Andaste’, from
‘Andasteronon’, or the ‘Andastaron’. To
the Dutch, they were the ‘Black Minqua’.
A few hundred who went south from Iroquois territory in 1697 became
known as the ‘Conestoga’.
Territory: Centered on the Susquehanna River, they
occupied the middle and lower valley and the lower valleys of some of the
river’s tributaries. At the height of
the Beaver Wars, and to help protect themselves against the British colonials,
the entire confederacy withdrew into one single fortified town, with several
European canons, on the lower Susquehanna, some twelve thousand people with
1300 warriors.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: As
mentioned above, this confederacy was made of six tribes, which we know from
John Smith’s writing of them having six “kings”. The main tribe were the Susquehannock,
on the middle Susquehanna River at the time of first contact. Twenty miles above them were the Quadrogue,
and beyond them the Utchowig on a western branch and the Tesinigh
on an eastern branch. On a branch
sixteen miles below the main tribe were the Attacock. The Cepawig lived on the heads of the
Patapasco River. The Wysox may
have been another tribe.
Fate: The Susquehannock were destroyed as a power
by the British colonies of Maryland and Virginia in 1675 after the two signed
treaties of peace with the Five Nations, and due to the chaos of Bacon’s
Rebellion in Virginia. The majority
moved north and were absorbed by the Seneca and the Onondaga, but some fled
south seeking refuge among the Meherrin and the Nottoway within the borders of
modern southern Virginia.
Around 1697, the League gave leave to a few hundred of the former
Susquehannock to remove south to Pennsylvania, where they established the town
of Conestoga.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Though they took
no part in any of the colonial struggles of the eighteenth century, the
Conestoga remnant did not escape the ravages of colonial war. In 1763, the “Paxton Boys” of Pennsylvania wiped
out the surviving Conestoga in response to Pontiac’s War along the western
frontier.
Descendants: Though their origins are most likely
forgotten, the bloodlines survive among the Seneca and the Onondaga of today.
Massawomeck
The first record of these people comes from John Smith of
Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia, with which the Massawomeck developed a
thriving trade.
Nomenclature: Their autonym is unknown; the Nanticoke called them the ‘Massawomeck’, which John Smith soon adopted. The Powhatan called them ‘Pocaughtawonauk’. French maps of the first half of the seventeenth century designate them
as ‘Atiouandaron’.
Territory: Probably on the North Branch and/or South Branch headwaters of the Potomac River, from which their canoe raids on the tribes of the Chesapeake bay area were greatly feared.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: According to the
Massawomeck themselves, there were four of these, the towns with their
satellite villages clearly equating to tribes: Tonhoga, Usserahak,
Shaunnetowa, and Mosticum.
Fate: Though the confederacy was apparently quite
populous, numbering possibly ten to thirty thousand, there is no mention of them in any colonial records after 1635.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Not applicable.
Descendants: Unknown.
SOUTHERN
Nottoway
The first of the groups whom their Algonquin-speaking
neighbors called ‘Mangoak’, a southern form of the Lenape word ‘Mengwe’.
Nomenclature: ‘Cheroenhaka’ is their autonym; ‘Nottoway’ is
one of the names given them by their Algonquin neighbors.
Territory: Originally living on the Nottway River in the
southern Virginia Piedmont when first encountered by Edward Bland in 1650, they
moved into what is now Surry County in 1681, then to Southampton County in
1694, both times to escape hostile tribes.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: The Nottoway
were a single tribe, with a female head chief, living in three towns.
Fate: After dwindling to to disease and warfare,
most migrated north with the Tuscarora who joined the League of the Iroquois in
1722, though a small remnant remained south.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: The Nottoway of
the south remained mostly quiet, though a small portion moved south to support
South Carolina in the Yamasee War of 1715-1717.
The Nottoway who went north with the Tuscarora followed their hosts’
allegiances.
Descendants: Their descendants survive in the Nottoway
Indian Tribe of Virginia and the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe, both
state-recognized tribes of Virginia.
Descendants also remain among the Tuscarora and the Oneida tribes in the
north.
Meherrin
The second of the groups whom their Algonquin-speaking
neighbors called ‘Mangoak’, a southern form of the Lenape word ‘Mengwe’.
Nomenclature: Their autonym is ‘Kauwetsaka’.
Nomenclature: Their autonym is ‘Kauwetsaka’.
Territory: Their original home was along the Meherrin
River west of the Nottoway when encountered by Edward Bland in 1650. In the early eighteenth century, they moved
south into North Carolina to evade encroachment by the growing colony of
Virginia.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: They were a
single tribe inhabiting no more than one or two towns. A significant number of refugee Susquehannock
joined them after their serious defeat by the Iroquois in 1675.
Fate: The Meherrin were confirmed in their lands by
the colony of North Carolina in 1726.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: They supported the
southern Tuscarora who rose up against the colonies in the first phase of the
Tuscarora War 1711-1712, and played little or not part in any of the subsequent
actions during the century.
Descendants: Their putative descendants survive as the
Meherrin Nation, a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina.
Tuscarora
The third of the groups whom their Algonquin-speaking
neighbors called ‘Mangoak’, a southern form of the Lenape word ‘Mengwe’.
Territory: When first encountered by Edward Bland in
1650, they occupied the valleys of the Roanoke, Neuse, Tar, and Pamlico Rivers
in northeastern North Carolina.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: The Tuscarora
were a confederacy of three distinct tribes, the Skaruren, the biggest and most important; the Katenuaka; and the Akawenteaka. At the time of first contact, they had
twenty-four towns and six thousand warriors; by 1708 this was reduced to
fifteen towns and two thousand warriors.
By then, even while still recognizing the three tribes, the Tuscarora
had reorganized geographically into two separate groups, a northern group on
the Roanoke River and a southern group south of the Pamlico River.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: The southern Tuscarora
conspired with several other tribes to attack settlements all along the North
Carolina frontier to stop their encroachment, beginning the Tuscarora War of
1711-1713. The northern Tuscarora fought
alongside North Carolina and its colonial and native allies. There, they supported the British against the
French. During the American Revolution,
they supported the American colonists.
Fate: After their defeat in the Tuscarora War, most
of the southern group travelled north to refuge with the League of the
Iroquois, who granted them nation status in 1722.
In 1715, seventy warriors of the group who remained went
south to aid South Carolina in the Yamasee War, and after it ended in 1717,
they were granted lands to live on with their families and joined with groups
of Nottoway and Meherrin who had come south into one tribe, which eventually
assimilated.
Descendants: Their descendants survive today primarily in
the Tuscarora Nation in New York and the Tuscarora of the Six Nations of the
Grand River in Ontario.
Persons claiming to be of Tuscarora descent in North
Carolina have organized several “tribes”, none recognized even by the state;
however, nearly all remaining south after the Tuscarora War eventually joined
their cousins in the north.
Coree
A little known group some think were Algonquin-speaking, but their language was mutually intelligible with an Iroquoian group to the north, and they were closely associated with the Tuscarora. They were first encountered by the Roanoke colonists, who called them Cwarennoc.
Territory: They lived on the peninsula south of Neuse River in what are now Cartet and Craven Counties in North Carolina.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: The Coree were a small tribe, but known to inhabit three towns or villages. These were Coranine, Narhantes, and Raruta.
Colonial wars of the 1700s: The Coree took an active part in the Tuscarora War (1711-1715) on the side of the southern Tuscarora.
Fate: After the Tuscarora War ended, the Coree were assigned to a reservation shared with the remnant of the Machapunga where their numbers dwindled until the tribe became extinct.
Neusiok
The Roanoke colony first heard of these people being involved in a war with tribes to the north.
Territory: They lived on the lower Neuse River.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: The two known were Chattooka and Rouconk, though they probably had more earlier.
Colonial wars of the 1700s: Like their Coree neighbors, the the Neusiok fought in the Tuscarora War on the side of the southern Tuscarora.
Fate: Already a dwindling people, they merged with the Tuscarora after the war.
COMPOSITE LATER GROUPS
Wyandot
Originated as a composite tribe of refugee Huron and Petun later joined
by some Chonnonton during the height of the Beaver Wars.
Nomenclature: ‘Wyandot’ is just a corruption of the name
‘Wendat’, the autonym of both the Petun and the Huron. The Mohawk call them the ‘Tionontatecaga’, the same by which they
earlier knew the Petun.
This Mohawk name
appears on various maps in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
in the same location as the ‘Atiouandaron’ of trans-Appalachian western
Virginia, which, if accurate, accounts for the name of the Guyandotte River
(the Petun and the Huron both used autonym ‘Wendat’).
Territory: Most of the Attignawantan of the Huron
confederacy had taken refuge with the Petun in 1648. Near the end of the following year, the
combined group migrated west with the Ottawa to Mackinac Island. In the winter of 1652-1653, the tribe stayed
at Teaontofai near a free band of Chonnonton at Skenchioe (the Thumb of
Michigan) near Teochanontian (Detroit).
In the spring, both groups removed with the Ottawa to Aotonatendie (Door
Peninsula of Green Bay), later transferring to Rock Island nearby where they
merged. From 1658 to 1665 they wandered
in northern Wisconsin before settling at Sainte-Esprit. Upon conflict with the Dakota, they left for
Sainte-Ignace in 1671, where they stayed until the French built Fort
Ponchartrain du Detroit in 1701 after the Great Peace. There the Wyandot became the elder brothers
of the French-alled tribes who also settled there.
In 1671, the Betts and Fallam expedition into the Virginia interior learned a group of Iroquoian-speaking Indians had migrated to the Guyandotte Valley in southwestern West Virginia earlier that year. They are shown at that location on maps of various cartographers from 1680 through 1718 under the
Mohawk name for the Wyandot (and earlier Petun) tribe, ‘Tionontatecaga’. The name for the river valley clearly derives
from their autonym, Wendat or Wyandot.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: By
the time of their arrival at Detroit, the Wyandot had become a single entity,
composed from the majority of both tribes of Petun, the Attignawantan of the
Huron, the Wenro refugees among the Petun, and that remnant band of Chonnonton.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: In the early part of the
century, the Wyandot universally supported the French. In 1738, the Wyandot at Detroit split between
those who continued to support the French and those who heeded Iroquois
entreaties to move to the Ohio Country and supported the British. The latter, under Orontony (also known as
Nicholas), first moved to the Lower Sandusky after refusing to join an
attack against the Cherokee (in revenge for their support of the Chickasaw), then in 1748 into the Ohio Valley.
During the French and Indian War, the Wyandot of the Ohio Country supported
the British while their cousins around Detroit supported the French.
Both factions took part in Pontiac’s War of 1763 alongside all the other western
tribes.
In the American Revolution, both groups supported the British. Both groups were also members of the Western
Confederacy and fought the Americans in the Northwest Indian War.
Fate: The ‘Tionontatecaga’ of the Guyandotte
Valley cease to be mentioned after 1718; they may have died out from disease
and warfare, been absorbed by the Iroquois, joined the Cherokee, or moved northeast
to merge with the former Erie of Mingo Flats, West Virginia.
The Wyandot of
Sandusky were removed to Kansas, then part of Indian Territory, in 1843, and
the majority of those to Oklahoma, to which Indian Territory was reduced when
Kansas became a state in 1855.
Descendants: The Wyandotte Nation, in Oklahoma, is the
only federally-recognized tribe in the USA, and is composed of descendants of
those moved south in 1855.
The Wyandotte Nation
of Kansas, state-recognized, is composed of those who had become U.S. citizens
by 1855 and remained there.
The Wyandots of
Anderdon, headquartered in Trenton, Michigan, and living in the cross border
region of Michigan and Ontario, descend from those Wyandot who remained in the
Detroit area in 1738 and mostly acculturated, though without losing memory of
their origins.
Cherokee
When first visited by the English, the Cherokee were a
confederacy of fifty to sixty independent towns of Iroqouian-speakers in the
southern Appalachian region grouped into five divisions or “council
fires”. Their origin, however, was in
the north.
Though ethnologists and historians from the late nineteenth
century have maintained that the Cherokee are of ancient origin, arising in the
territory in which the English encountered them in the late eighteenth century,
historians and missionaries among them from the eighteenth century until the
late nineteenth universally recognized their “foreign” roots. Even some of the oldest tales of the Cherokee
themselves point to this origin.
The nucleus of those who later became the Cherokee
originated as members of the Riqueronon tribe of the Erie confederacy,
appearing as the ‘Richahechrians’ in Virginia in 1654, identified as the
‘Rickohockans’ in western North Carolina in 1670.
According to Moravian missionaries and others in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Cherokee were made of former
Erie (including from the other tribes), Huron, Shawnee, Powhatan, and other
refugees from wars among natives and against European colonists. In addition, they assimilated the remnants of
Mississippian peoples remaining in the areas they settled rather than allowing
themselves to be displaced.
Nomenclature: Their most common autonym in the Cherokee
language is ‘Ani-Yunwiya’
The common name by which they are known, and that contained
in the official names of each of their three (four) modern tribes, ‘Cherokee’,
derives from the extinct dialect of Lower Cherokee; otherwise they would be
known as ‘Chelokee’. It may be related
to the name which Champlain most commonly referred to the Huron after 1613, ‘Charioquois’.
The first notice of them in English colonial (1674) records
calls them the ‘Chiokees’. They first
appear on French maps in three groups of towns, presumably by their distinct
dialects, as the ‘Tchalaka’, ‘Katugi’, and ‘Taligui’. The first is the same as above; the second is
similar to ‘Quatoghi’, the Mohawk name for the Huron; the third is identical to
the Lenape name for the Erie and is still their name for the Cherokee, and,
under the alternate version ‘Allegewi’, is also similar to another name
Champlain used for the Huron, ‘Allegonantes’.
Among the Five Nations Iroquois, the Cherokee were known as
‘Oyatageronon’. The Seneca called them
‘Oyadageono’. The Onondaga called them
‘Tkwetaheuhane’. The Wyandot name was
‘Wataiyoronon’. The Catawba name was
‘Manteran’.
Territory: As the Cherokee, they originally occupied the
Southern Appalachian region in East and Southeast Tennessee, western North
Carolina, northwest South Carolina, and northeast Georgia. Later, during the Revolution, they shifted to
Southeast Tennessee, western North Carolina, North Georgia, and Northeast
Alabama.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: English traders
and explorers identified sixty-four towns a decade before the devastating
smallpox epidemic of 1738 and fifty-four a decade after. Though made of many diverse peoples, they had
no separate “tribes”. They spoke three
major Iroquoian-based dialects, the southernmost differing significantly from
the others two. The first of these was
referred to as “Lower Cherokee”, spoken almost exclusively in the Lower Towns,
which in the early decades of contact comprised half the Cherokee
population. The second was referred to
as “Middle Cherokee”, and was spoken in the Middle and Out Towns. The third was referred to as “Upper Cherokee”,
and was spoken by those in the Valley and Overhill Towns.
Politically, the Cherokee grouped themselves into five
“council fires”, known by their English designations. These “council fires” were a matter of
geographic social and political convenience rather than hard divisions. The Out
Towns stood along the Tuckasegee and Oconluftee Rivers in the foothils of
the Great Smoky Mountains; the Valley
Towns along the Valley and Upper Hiwasee Rivers in southewestern North
Carolina; the Middle Towns on the upper
Little Tennessee and Nantahala Rivers and Little Tellico Creek in western North
Carolina; the original Lower Towns along the Chattooga,
Keowee, and Tugaloo Rivers, and the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River in
northwestern South Carolina and Northeast Georgia; and the Overhill Towns along the lower Little Tennessee and Tellico Rivers
in east and southeast Tennessee, and later the Hiwasee and Ocoee Rivers as
well.
During the Cherokee-American wars of the late eighteenth
century, these division evolved into five new groupings as the population
shifted west. The Middle Towns (except
those on the Natahala River) and the original Lower Towns were completely
abandoned. The Out Towns (now including
those on Nantahala) became known as the Hill
Towns, the Valley Towns and the Overhill Towns remained, and two new
groupings appeared, the Upper Towns
in North Georgia and the Chickamauga
Towns in the Chattanooga region. The
later removed even further west to southern Marion County, Tennessee, and areas
of Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama, where they became known as the
“new” Lower Towns.
In 1794, they officially became the Cherokee Nation, but
most power remained with the five councils of the local regions. In 1809, the individual regional councils
were officially abolished, though for all intents and purposes the divisions
remained until 1820, when the Cherokee National Council divided the nation into
eight legislative and judicial districts.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: Besides wars with the Iroquois,
the Creek, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Shawnee, the Catawba, and the Yuchi,
the Cherokee fought more actions against European colonial powers than any
other southern native group, and more than any other Iroquoian-speaking people.
In 1708, they joined the Abikha and the Catawba in a campaign against
the French at Mobile that ended with the destruction of the town of the
French-allied Mobile Indians.
In the Tuscarora War of 1711-1713, they fought as allies of South
Carolina and North Carolina against the Tuscarora and their native allies.
In the Yamasee War of 1715-1717, they began as allies of the insurgent
Yamasee and their fellow “rebels” but switched sides mid-way to that of the
British colonies of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
In the Third Natchez War of 1729-1731, they fought alongside the
Chickasaw after 1730 in support of the Natchez.
They again supported the Chickasaw in the First French-Chickasaw War of
1736, earning enough enmity that the French planned a major invasion in 1738
that was aborted by the division of the Wyandot.
From 1755 to 1756, they fought a war against North Carolina over
encroachment of settlers into Cherokee territory that only ended when the
British called them into service against the French.
The Cherokee started out the French and Indian War as allies of the
British, then quit and switched sides, fighting the Anglo-Cherokee War of
1758-1761.
In Lord Dunmore’s War of 1774, small groups of Cherokee fought
alongside the Mingo, Lenape, and Shawnee, other small groups attacked frontier
settlements in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
They sided with the British in the American Revolution, fighting in
most of the actions in the South in which native groups engaged.
The Cherokee were founding members of the Western Confederacy and
fought in the Northwest Indian War of 1783-1795.
Simultaneous with the the above two wars, they fought their own
campaigns against the frontier American settlements in Tennessee, Kentucky, and
Georgia, and the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, in the Cherokee-American wars of 1776-1794. In this, they had as allies Great Britain
until 1783, then New Spain, the Creek, and the Shawnee.
Though condemnation by Cherokee leaders of Tecumseh was nearly
universal, small groups of warriors nonetheless travelled north to fight in his
confederacy.
During the War of 1812, the Cherokee supported the Americans against
the British.
A regiment of Cherokee fought under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War of
1813-1814.
Fate: Small groups of Cherokee had long roamed west
of the Mississippi River, most returning though many also stayed, but in 1809,
the first large group migrated to Arkansas Territory, becoming the foundation
of the Cherokee Nation West. After this,
those remaining in the former homeland became known informally as the Cherokee
Nation East.
After the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, emigration rate increased,
and in much larger groups. Most of those
remaining were forcibly removed west to Indian Territory in 1838-1839. The Cherokee along the Oconaluftee and
Nantahala Rivers, already outside the bounds of the Nation by earlier land
cessions, were allowed to stay, as were partially or largely acculturated
residents of the Valley Towns.
The Cherokee remaining east managed to avoid dissolution in
the early nineteenth century largely due to the anamolous relationship with the
state vis-à-vis the federal government.
The Cherokee Nation East and the Cherokee Nation West merged in 1839;
the Cherokee Nation dissolved in 1905 under the Dawes Act.
Descendants: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is
composed of desecendants of the Oconaluftee, Nanatahala, and Valley Cherokee
who evaded Removal.
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is made up of descendants of
the Cherokee Nation West and the Cherokee forcibly removed from the East.
The United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also based in
Oklahoma, is composed of descendants of the same populations as the CNO, but
requires a one-fourth blood quantum.
All three of the above are federally-recognized.
The Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands-Mount Tabor Indian
Community is composed of descendants of Cherokee who moved south in from the
1840’s and of smaller among whom they came to be seen as “elder brothers”,
particularly during the wars with the Republic and later Sate of Texas. Until their disenfranchisement at the
organization of the CNO in 1975, they had seats on the Cherokee National
Council that remained after the dissolution of the original Cherokee Nation in
1905.
This people are known solely from their appearance on maps. They are almost certainly the 600 people of the “Nation des Chats” who surrendered to the Iroquois “near Virginia” in 1682, who were referred to as “Black Mingoes” in Pennsylvania accounts of that event. They were being chased and harassed by “southern Indians”, possibly Yuchi.
Nomenclature: The name Tionontatecaga was the Mohawk designation for the Wyandot, the composite group of Huron-Petun-Chonnonton who took up residence at Fort Ponchatrain du Detroit in 1701. The use of the name for this group on maps indicates they were of roughly the same composition. Nation des Chats, of course, was the primary name by which the French referred to the Erie, and Black Mingoes was the English version of the Dutch and Swedish term for the Erie.
Territory: The Tionontatecaga lived in the Guyandotte Valley to which they gave their name.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: None that are known.
Fate: Unknown for sure. Most likely eventually migrated north to the protection of the League, but some remained and their descendants relocated to Tygarts Valley where they lived at Mingo Flats.
Colonial wars of the 1700s: Unless they became part of the Mingo, none that is known.
Tionontatecaga
This people are known solely from their appearance on maps. They are almost certainly the 600 people of the “Nation des Chats” who surrendered to the Iroquois “near Virginia” in 1682, who were referred to as “Black Mingoes” in Pennsylvania accounts of that event. They were being chased and harassed by “southern Indians”, possibly Yuchi.
Nomenclature: The name Tionontatecaga was the Mohawk designation for the Wyandot, the composite group of Huron-Petun-Chonnonton who took up residence at Fort Ponchatrain du Detroit in 1701. The use of the name for this group on maps indicates they were of roughly the same composition. Nation des Chats, of course, was the primary name by which the French referred to the Erie, and Black Mingoes was the English version of the Dutch and Swedish term for the Erie.
Territory: The Tionontatecaga lived in the Guyandotte Valley to which they gave their name.
Towns and/or constituent tribes: None that are known.
Fate: Unknown for sure. Most likely eventually migrated north to the protection of the League, but some remained and their descendants relocated to Tygarts Valley where they lived at Mingo Flats.
Colonial wars of the 1700s: Unless they became part of the Mingo, none that is known.
Mingo
The Mingo were a population that emerged in the early 1700s,
made up largely of descendants former Erie, Huron, Chonnonton, and
Susquehannock adopted by the various nations of the Iroquois League and given
leave to settle west of the League homeland, provided they remained loyal, much
the same way as the Susquehannock who became the Conestoga.
At first they inhabited the valleys of western Pennsylvania
alongside and among the Lenape, Munsee (originally a Lenape subtribe that
became more or less separate), and Shawnee, as at Logstown (est. c. 1725) near
the later Fort Dusquene and even later Fort Pitt. After the French and Indian War, the Mingo,
along with their allies, spread to the Ohio Country.
Another major source were the Erie who surrendered en masse
in 1682 and were allowed to remain in Mingo Flats, West Virginia, until the
outbreak of the French and Indian War.
The Erie subtribe Oniasontke which remained on the Ohio (or
Wabash) River probably merged into the Mingo, though maps continued to show
them about a lake which was the head of a tributary into the Wabash into the
late 18th century.
Individuals and small groups from the Five Nations also
merged with groups of Mingo.
Nomenclature: The name Mingo derives directly from the
Dutch ‘Minqua’, their version of the Lenape word ‘Mengwe’, a general
designation for all Iroquoian-speakers.
Less commonly, the people in question were also called ‘Blue Mingo’,
primarily to distinguish them from the White Mingo (Susquehannock), Black Mingo
(Erie), Little Mingo (Huron), and Big Mingo (Five Nations Iroquois), though
most groups of Mingo were composites of these.
Territory: While in western Pennsylvania, the Mingo had
only minor independence, and it was not until after the French and Indian War
when they migrated into Ohio Country away from the League’s direct control that
they flowered.
The people at Mingo Flats in eastern West Virginia moved
to what became Crow’s Town at the later Mingo Junction in Steubenville, Ohio,
in 1755, because they sided with the French rather than the British. Later the settlement spread across river to
Old Mingo Bottom in Follansbee, West Virginia, but retreated back after the
Treaty of Stanwix in 1768. After the
multi-ethnic Logstown was abandoned in 1759 when Fort Pitt was constructed atop
the ruins of Fort Duquesne, this was the only Indian town on the Ohio River between
it and the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville, Kentucky). Crow’s Town was abandoned after Dunmore’s War
in 1774.
Most of the towns and villages the Mingo inhabited were
multi-ethnic, and few permanent. The
most important were those along the Sandusky and Scioto Rivers in western Ohio,
at least after the French and Indian War.
Towns and/or
constituent tribes: The Mingo were a
collection of multi-ethnic Iroquoian-speaking groups.
Fate: The various bands of Mingo eventually
coalesced into two major groups, the ‘Seneca of Sandusky’, upriver from the
Wyandot, and the ‘Mixed Band of Seneca and Shawnee’ on the Scioto River who
founded Lewistown, Ohio. There were
likely few, if any, actual Seneca in either group.
The Seneca of Sandusky absorbed a group of Cayuga in 1807.
Both the Seneca of Sandusky and the Mixed Band of Seneca and
Shawnee relocated from Ohio to Indian Territory in 1831, the latter becoming
the United Nation of Seneca and Shawnee in 1832 while the former became the
Seneca-Cayuga Tribe, which assimilated a group of Cayuga from Canada in 1881.
Colonial wars of
the 1700s: The first time the
Mingo took part in the colonial wars was during the French and Indian War
alongside their close allies the Shawnee and the Lenape as well as the others
natives in the north supporting the French.
Their fight in this war ended along with that of the other two mentioned
in 1758.
They participated in Pontiac’s War with the other western tribes of the
north in 1763.
In 1774, they instigated Lord Dunmore’s War, fought mostly in Kentucky
and the Ohio Country with their close allies the Shawnee and the Lenape plus
small parties of Cherokee.
During the American Revolution, they sided with the British against the
colonists.
They were members of the Western Confederacy and fought in the
Northwest Indian War.
Some Mingo took part in Tecumseh’s War of 1811-1813.
In the War of 1812, they sided with the British against the Americans.
Descendants: Descendants of the Mingo live in the Seneca-Cayuga
Nation in Oklahoma and among the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, successor
of the United Seneca and Shawnee; their bloodlines also probably survive among other
Shawnee and Lenape tribes.
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